The Harry-verse
by Lunaterre224
Summary: Harold, Harriet and Harrison Potter are in a difficult situation. Time has been manipulated, paradoxes have formed and parallel universes are beginning to touch. Reality is spiralling out of control. [Rated for paranoia]
1. Harry? Chapter One

The Great Hall was just as incredible as he had imagined! Candles floated in the air among ghosts, while the Sorting Hat began its song about the Houses. Harrison was so busy admiring the star-dusted ceiling that he ended up bumping into someone.

"Watch it!" Someone sneered at him. By his luck, it simply _had_ to be the red haired boy from the train. Could it get any worse?

As if summoned by Murphy's Law, Harrison's brother appeared over the red head's shoulder, grinning from amongst his new friends; a small crowd of first years was clustered around him. "Oh yeah, that's my idiot younger brother. I told you about him on the train, didn't I? Don't mind him, he's just a bit odd you see..."

Face turning red, Harrison turned away from his idiot brother and his hopeless clingers-on. Why couldn't they be sorted any faster?

Longbottom, Neville ended up in Gryffindor.

Harrison waited impatiently as Parkinsons, Perks and Patils were sorted and then finally...

"Potter, Harold."

Sharing one last grin with his fan club, Harrison's brother sat on the stool and a hush fell over the hall.

_Typical_, thought Harrison in exasperation. (_Rose_ _simply_ _nodded in sympathy beside him._)

The Sorting Hat landed on Harold's head and gave a moment's pause, before crying out.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

It seemed as though the entire school had gone wild. The House of red and gold started screaming and dancing.

"We've got Potter! We've actually got Harry Potter!" A pair of red haired twins whooped in excitement.

Eventually everyone settled down enough for the next person to be called.

"Potter, Harriet."

This time, the general atmosphere of the hall was confusion. Harrison _so_ did not understand other people.

The hat was quiet for a couple minutes before making its decision.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Again, a house table went wild. The House of yellow and black was cheering at the top of their collective lungs.

"Potter, Harrison."

Once more, confusion and muttering roamed the hall. Far greater than in Harriet's sorting.

Slowly, Harrison made his way to the stool and placed the hat upon his head, thankful that it prevented him from catching their stares.

_Well,_ stated a voice _this is unexpected._

Harrison's face creased in worry over a fear that he daren't not speak aloud.

_Ah, do not worry_ assured the voice. _I make sure that everyone is sorted and that they go to the house that is right for them. Now where to put you?_

"Wherever I fit best?" Harrison questioned. Was the hat going senile in its old age, or did it let everyone choose?

_I detest that!_ Thought the hat _do you have any _idea_ how difficult this job is?_

Harrison frowned. "Not very?"

He hadn't been aware that hats could sigh. _You need to understand when a question is rhetorical. Somehow, you're still good at getting what you want despite your poor social skills-_

"Hey!"

_-and you hate to lose to your brother under any circumstances. Yes, I have a couple ideas about where to place you..._

"Can I ask you a question?" Harrison suddenly knew that if he didn't ask, he would always regret it.

_You just did, Harri._ The hat told him. _But I already know your question. After all, I _am_ in your head._

"So?" The anticipation was worse than waiting for his actual sorting itself.

_Harri, I could not possibly comment on your sanity. Hogwarts has a very strict policy on that._

"SLYTHERIN!"

Stunned, Harrison made his way to the much more civilised table of silver and green. Several people attempted to shake his hand, but Harri wasn't paying attention.

(_Rose was sorted into Ravenclaw. Not that anyone cared._)

Harriet shot him a smile from across the hall, while Harold said something to the person beside him and the Gryffindor table burst out into laughter.

Harrison sighed. This was obviously what the next seven years of his life would be like.


	2. Harry! Chapter One

All was not well with Harry Potter.

After both Albus and James had gone off the rails during their teenage years, he rather felt inept as a father and Ginny's advice never seemed to help. He didn't bother asking Hermione and Ron, they had their hands full with their own children.

Sure, after the whole 'cursed child' adventure, he had began to feel closer with his younger son, but that relationship seemed to be falling apart again, especially after Lily and James started having their own adventures. While neither of them had bested Albus and Scorpius on time travel as of yet, it was only a matter of time.

Hence, the whole 'becoming the Master of Death' thing. It was embarrassing what being a father of three teenagers drove you to.

What Harry needed was some advice. Good, solid, parenting advice. Harry couldn't think of anyone better to ask than his own parents. Okay, well... maybe he could. There was the Weasleys after all, they'd had loads of children and then there was Luna, who (despite being Luna) had been a fantastic mother to her children. Neville, also was no stranger to taking care of children, what with being a professor of Hogwarts and all.

No, perhaps it was all an excuse. It was possible that he was having a mid-life crisis. Or perhaps he was just growing to old to deal with the damnable Potter-luck.

Sitting on his desk of his study were the two pieces of the Elder Wand. (It could stay broken, Harry didn't really want it anyway.) Next to it lay the old Gaunt ring, Grindelwald's mark carved into its surface. Across the back of his chair, the Cloak of Invisibility rested, recently confiscated after James' adventure last term (after Albus got hold of the illegal time turner, both of his siblings also seemed to inherit the improbable Potter-luck in full force).

Placing the ring upon his finger, Harry twisted it three times. Once again, Harry thought about how crazy this all was. Why was he doing this? He knew he was struggling with life after the war, but to resort to using the Deathly Hallows? Still, the irrational part of him that never wanted all this responsibility pushed him forwards.

Harry closed his eyes and thought of those he loved.

His mother was the first to appear, her spectre gently sitting at the edge of his desk. His father materialised soon after, a hand on his wife's shoulder. Sirius stood behind them grinning wildly, while Lupin and Tonks stood hand-in-hand to one side, by the door.

"Harry." Her eyes were filled with love, yet her voice was confused. He wasn't supposed to bring them back.

Harry felt guilt, but no regret when he met her gaze. "Mum" he replied.

"Why are we here, Harry?" James fixed his bespectacled gaze upon his son. Sirius was no longer grinning behind him.

Lowering his eyes, Harry desperately tried to come up with an answer. "I don't know what to say."

From the corner, Lupin frowned. However, Sirius cut in before he could speak. "What do you mean, Harry? What's wrong?"

Placing a hand across his face, Harry absent-mindedly rubbed his scar, a nervous gesture that he had never been able to get rid of.

"Everything."

"Everything?" His mother's disbelief was a physical thing.

"Everything's gone wrong." Harry shrugged his shoulders. "I've tried to make things better, to help my family, but nothing ever seems to work. Blood-prejudice is still a thing, my children keep getting drawn into deadly situations and no matter what I seem to do I'm tired. I'm so tired of it all."

Lily leaned forwards across the desk, her own spectral hand stopping to lay above his own. "You are doing the best you can, Harry."

Somehow, those words infuriated instead of soothed Harry. Why was his best never enough? Why was he never allowed to be happy or left in peace? Why was there always another disaster to solve? "What would you know about family? All you did was die for it. The difficult part is trying to live with it!"

"That's enough!" James bellowed. Harry wasn't sure how much of it that he'd said aloud. He wasn't sure he cared.

Lily had removed her hand from his. Harry placed his hand onto the desk.

"I'm sorry." He apologised, barely able to meet his mother's eyes. "You know I wish your sacrifice had never been necessary."

The splinters of the Elder Wand dug into his hand. Harry's vision started to sway to the alarm of the spectres gathered and Harry himself began to take on a spectre-like appearance, before disappearing entirely.


	3. Harry? Chapter Two

Harriet sat down at the Hufflepuff table next to Justin and Hannah. It was a perfectly normal thing for her to do and yet she still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

It was a difficult feeling to shake. She'd been having it almost as soon as she arrived at Hogwarts. The conversation with the Sorting Hat had felt wrong. The comforts of the Hufflepuff Common Room felt wrong. Having Potions with the Ravenclaws felt wrong. Justin and Hannah were her best friends, along with Susan and thankfully neither of them felt wrong, just a little... odd.

Unwillingly, Harriet snuck another look at the Gryffindor table. It was something that she seemed incapable of preventing and looking at it from this side of the Great Hall felt incredibly, inexcusably _wrong_.

She was a Hufflepuff! She loved being in Hufflepuff and she loved her Hufflepuff friends! However, Harriet was unable to prevent the feelings that arose when ever she looked at the House of Lions.

Resigning herself to do her usual scan of the table, Harriet catalogued her brother sitting next to the youngest Weasley. The nervous boy who had lost his toad on the train sat a couple of seats down. There was no bushy mane of hair beside him. At the other end of the table, the Weasley twins were laughing at a joke that Harriet was unable to hear.

Across from the Gryffindor table was the Slytherin table. This one Harriet was usually far better at tearing her eyes away from. Today however, Harriet let her eyes wander until they reached a blond head that filled Harriet with far more conflicting emotions than she had any right to feel. Skimming over the rest of the first years, Harriet shot a smile at Harrison, who frowned in return.

Somehow, her brother could tell that she wasn't quite herself. Harriet hadn't felt herself ever since these strange feelings had started to appear.

The doors to the Great Hall flew open, crashing into one of the floating pumpkins and smashing in a burst of orange onto the floor. However, everyone only had eyes for Professor Quirrell, who came sprinting in.

At the Gryffindor table, Harold suddenly jumped up.

"Troll!" Quirrell exclaimed, panting either in exertion or fear. "There's a troll in the dungeons!"

There was a momentary silence from the entire school body, when Quirrell collapsed into a heap. It didn't last long.

Amongst the chaos that followed, Harriet was perfectly ready to go to her common room with the rest of her friends when she remembered something. There had been no bushy head of curls at the Gryffindor table.

Running across the Great Hall and simultaneously trying to avoid panicking students and a recovering Professor Quirrell, Harriet reached the Gryffindors and pulled the toad-boy to one side.

"The know-it-all in your House! Where is she?" Harriet demanded, conscious of the Hufflepuffs currently draining from the hall.

Toad-Boy was only able to stammer a response.

Harriet sighed. She didn't have time for this! She needed to get back to her Common Room before anyone noticed she was missing!

"Look, your friend wasn't at the feast, so she probably doesn't know about the troll." Harriet informed him. "I just want to know that she isn't in any danger."

At this point, Toad-Boy looked absolutely horror-struck. "S-she's in the g-girl's b-bathroom. S-she's been crying ever since classes f-finished."

Harriet's eyes widened this was even worse than she imagined. Looking around the rapidly emptying hall, she was unable to see any more teachers or prefects. Gulping in the terror of what she was about to do, Harriet took Toad-Boy's hand. "We'd better find her before the troll does then."


	4. Interlude: James

In all reality, James couldn't remember having _four_ children. He had been certain that Lily had been pregnant with just the one.

Mentally, James counts his children yet again. His three beautiful children were all safe and happily on the train to Hogwarts. Harold was the boldest of the lot and already had a couple children beside him, while he gestured wildly with his hands explaining something. Harrison stood off to one side, watching his brother with something approaching envy.

To be honest, James always got exasperated with his second child. He needed to be more assertive! What was the point in always watching his siblings do things, when he could join in himself?

It was rather odd that he had two sons named some variation of 'Harry', but James didn't think it was _too_ odd. Lily had wanted to call their child 'Harry' if a boy and perhaps 'Rose' or some other flower if it was a girl. Frowning, James tried to follow that logic. Then why was their daughter called... ?

Shaking his head, James waved at his children. Harriet was beside her brothers, hauling their trunks into a compartment. She was a little ray of sunshine, that one. Just looking at his wonderful daughter and her ever-present smile was enough to warm his heart.

Being around Harriet was like spending time with his dearest Lily. James frowned, confusion overwhelming him again. Where was his wife? It was their children's first day of school, why wasn't she standing beside him?

Wait...

Although he could remember spending breakfast talking to his wife and son, a sudden grief clenched itself in James' chest. That couldn't be right. His wife had been dead for the past ten years, why would he think...

His frown deepened as he contemplated his wife's death. As he knew she had to be alive, he had died to save her and his child from Voldemort after all.

No sooner had that thought occurred to James when King's Cross appeared to dissolve and disappear... No! That was wrong as well. He was still at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, but there was no longer the crush of people beside him. The train had departed. It was far too quiet and clean to be King's Cross Station and yet somehow, it was.

Unfortunately, he was not alone.

Sitting on a bench was a man who could have been James' mirror image. His hair was as tussled as his own, only partially concealing a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. He seemed to be quite content to be sitting on the bench, almost as if he was waiting for a train that could arrive at any second.

James drew his wand. The stranger ignored him.

Not knowing what else he should do, James kept his wand raised and slowly approached the stranger. It was quite possible that they knew more about this strange place than he did.

"That won't work here." The stranger refused to look up from where he was scanning the tracks for a train that had yet to arrive. "Your wand, I mean. Magic doesn't really work that well in Limbo."

"Limbo?" James asked, not really understanding.

The stranger turned his gaze to James' own and a shudder slid down his spine. He'd never considered how close Lily's eyes were to the killing curse. Perhaps because Lily's had never been so cold, even though the pair staring right at him were identical to his wife's.

"The place between Life and Death."

Fear raced through James. Nothing was making sense! He was in Limbo, which kind of looked like King's Cross where he had been seeing off his children (his child?) without Lily. Because she was dead. And he was probably dead himself.

"Where's Lily?" James demanded, wand aimed at the stranger's heart. "Where's my wife?"

Sighing, the stranger stood. "I tried to save her, but everything's gone wrong."

James' fist tightened around his wand. "Save her? What happened? I was trying to fight Voldemort..."

"You're dead." The stranger informed him bluntly. "You've been dead for the past ten years and even longer than that. The fact that you were still alive enough to get to King's Cross was a bit of a miscalculation on my part, seeing as you weren't alive enough to raise the children."

Staggering backwards, James tried to process that information. He had died trying to save his son, Harry. Harry, who had grown up, only to use the Stone of Resurrection to meet him and Lily...

James looked up into the eyes of his adult son who he had died to protect. His eyes were far too cold and green like a killing curse. And Lily wasn't here.

"You." He whispered. The past ten years had been a blur, but James remembered enough. "You were the one to raise them."

Harry smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.

"I watched out for them." He admitted.

James looked at his adult son. He wasn't sure he liked how he had turned out. Okay, that was a lie: he definitely didn't like how Harry had turned out. Yet this was the child he had died trying to protect, he wasn't exactly one to judge was he?

"Are they happy?" James asked simply.

Harry frowned, as if he didn't quite understand. "Happy enough."

A train pulled in. Unlike the Hogwarts Express, it was neither scarlet nor a stream engine. It was incredibly muggle in design.

James turned to his son. "Is that for me?"

For what it was worth, James remembered dying before. It wasn't exactly bad. On the other hand, he much preferred living. Last time, he'd had Lily with him too.

"You are free to pass on."

Still, James hesitated. "Will Lily be there?"

"Possibly. Probably not."

"Could you be anymore vague?" Harry's father exclaimed.

His son fiddled with his wand. Albus Dumbledore's old wand.

"No," he answered. "I don't think I can. Something happened to her that Halloween. Lily Potter disappeared and soon those children took her place. Memories have been modified, but somehow she isn't _dead_ yet."

Harry frowned at James. It was the look McGonagall used to give him when she thought he was being a bad influence on others. "She isn't _alive_ though either."

"And the children?" James countered. "They're all 'Harry Potter'! Surely that means something!"

"As far as I can figure, they _are_ _all Harry Potter_, or at least a part of him." His son mused. "Perhaps _I'm_ just a part of him too."

James' hand tightened around his wand. "That doesn't make any sense" he told his son (part of his son?) bluntly. "You cannot simply divide yourself into parts!"

Harry fixed his cold, green eyes once again on his father. "_Terrible things happen to wizards that mess with time_."

It was true. James could feel it. Terrible things had happened to his son, things that made James hesitate to call the thing in front of him his son. Knuckles whitening around his wand, James prepared himself to do what was necessary.

Terrible things happened to wizards that split themselves into pieces also. However, James had a feeling that this was far worse than Voldemort.

_This_ was the child he had _died_ _to protect_. He reminded himself.

Although, in the blurry recollections of his past ten years, James realised that Harry wasn't the only child he had died to protect from Voldemort. They were still innocent. James readied his wand.

This was for Harold. For Harriet and Harrison. _(For Rose)._

"_Avada Kedavra!_"

Harry just smiled. His eyes the same colour as the spell James had just cast. "I told you that doesn't work here."


End file.
